Margie Apa

Chief Executive, interim Health New Zealand

The panel will discuss the approach and raison d’etre for a new health structure, potential impact on Age Care and home-based support

Margie Apa is Chief Executive of Health New Zealand, the
government’s new centralised national health organisation.
She has more than two decades of health-sector leadership
experience, previously serving as CEO of Counties Manukau
District Health Board.
Before becoming CEO of Counties Manukau District Health
Board, Margie was Director of Population Health and Strategy
at the district health board. She is the first Samoan to lead a
district health board in New Zealand and has also served as
Deputy Director-General Sector Capability and
Implementation at the Ministry of Health. In December 2021
she was named as Chief Executive of Health New Zealand,
which is set to come into operation on 1 July 2022.
Margie graduated from the University of Auckland with a
Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in management and
employment relations, and also has a Master of Public
Administration (Executive) from Victoria University of
Wellington.
She has been on the Board of World Vision New Zealand since
2011 and was appointed Chair of the Board in 2019. She is also
a Trustee of the Middlemore Foundation for Health
Innovation, Middlemore Clinical Trials and Lifeline Foundation
Charitable Trust.
Margie is an active member of the Pacific Island Presbyterian
community and carries the honorific title Fepulea’i from her
family village of Sale’aula, Savai’I in Samoa.